The new service promises to help governments and public sector organizations keep data safe, secure, and local.
Microsoft on Wednesday announced Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty, a new solution aimed at governments and public sector customers looking to accelerate digital transformation efforts. The new service was announced at this week’s Inspire 2022 event, a virtual effort focused on Microsoft partners relationships and programs.
Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty is built on Microsoft’s public cloud infrastructure. Microsoft operates more than 60 cloud regions globally. This widespread global network enables the company to deliver data residency and proximity requirements for the entire Microsoft Cloud offering, the company said, including Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and Azure services.
“Enabled by our industry-leading policy controls, customers today can meet many regulatory requirements and implement policies to contain their data and applications within their preferred geographic boundary. Customers can specify the country or region for most service deployments with the ability to satisfy industry, national, or global security, privacy and compliance requirements,” said Corey Sanders, corporate vice president of Microsoft Cloud for Industry and its global expansion team.
Sanders said that Microsoft is expanding its data residency commitment to European Union customers to meet forthcoming EU Data Boundary requirements.
“Microsoft has the most comprehensive compliance coverage of any cloud service provider with 100-plus offerings including more than 50 which are specific to global regions and countries,” he said.
Sanders noted Microsoft’s efforts to keep data safe including Azure Confidential Computing, the use of customer-owned encryption keys, and double key encryption. The service will employ Sovereign Landing Zones, designed, as Sanders puts it, an orchestration system “to simplify the architecture, deployment workflow and provide intelligent tools” to customers in a streamlined way.
“The Sovereign Landing Zone is being built upon the enterprise scale Azure Landing Zone to recommend and enforce regulatory compliance using Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) and Policy-as-Code (PaC) capabilities built into Azure, which make deployments automatable, customizable, repeatable and consistent,” he added.
Sanders said Microsoft is expanding its Government Security Program, which provides confidential security information and resources to trusted Microsoft partners and customers. It’s already in use in more than 45 countries globally, he said.
“Eligible participants receive controlled access to source code, engage on technical content about Microsoft’s products and services, and have access to five globally distributed Transparency Centers. Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty will also enable audit rights to examine Azure’s compliance processes and evidence under non-disclosure agreements and available audit terms,” said Sanders.
Looping back to the Inspire event, Sanders said the new service has been envisioned as a “partner-led and partner-first solution.”
“With the Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty, customers will work with in-country partners that have industry and technical experience to help them plan, onboard, govern and operate their cloud environments with capabilities including data residency, confidential computing, document classification and hybrid deployments. Partners will also add value by working with customers to customize the Sovereign Landing Zone, assisting with the audit programs mentioned above, and providing extra readiness, support and transparency,” he said.
Managing risk and maintaining compliance is central to Microsoft’s new data sovereignty efforts, but not unique. Earlier this year the company announced Purview, an effort to help untangle enterprise data governance and security compliance. Purview provides enterprises with asset visibility across their entire data estate. The service works across hybrid cloud infrastructures as well, helping businesses to manage data across different cloud environments, using different apps, and on different endpoints, according to the company.
